The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body, whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,--as if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood,--and finally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he again leaned on his hammer,--

     "Now, master!"

     "Are you all right now?" demanded Joe.

     "Ah! I am all right," said gruff Old Orlick.

     "Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men," said Joe, "let it be a half-holiday for all."

     My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,--she was a most unscrupulous spy and listener,--and she instantly looked in at one of the windows.

     "Like you, you fool!" said she to Joe, "giving holidays to great idle hulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in that way. I wish I was his master!"

     "You'd be everybody's master, if you durst," retorted Orlick, with an ill-favored grin.